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Digital History Seminar: 20th Century Spain

Evelyn Hutchins an ambulance and truck driver that served with the Republic Medical Services.

Excerpt from an Interview with Evelyn Hutchins

This is a transcription of an interview that Hutchins gave on why she decided to become a truck driver and why as a woman this was a very important fight for her personally.

I went to drive. They probably considered that in case something went wrong I could do a lot of clerical work. On that basis they were willing to send me there.[1]

I had driven a number of ambulances here around the city, taking them back and forth to the boat, and they were satisfied that I really could handle the cars. It was found that I could drive the car as well as, and better than, some of the fellows who were going...Some fellows thought it was very funny that I should be there driving. I am little but I never made any attempt to swagger or act mannish. I acted just the way I always acted. I used to argue with them about it. They would say, “You are so little, what can you do?” And I would tell them, “I am just me.” I was a girl, I was small and didn’t weigh much but I was doing a job and wasn’t that enough. They would like to take pictures of me next to my truck; because I was small they thought it was very funny. Some of them would say, “All I have to do is give one hard blow and you’ll keel over.” But the important thing was that the fellows who understood why I wanted to be there, why I had taken the job of driving which was the only possibility of getting as close as I could to the actual fighting, they didn’t think a girl shouldn’t want to fight and have a machine gun instead of driving a car - these fellows were the fellows who took the thing seriously, and I found them to have a more serious and level headed attitude about things that happened.

I always had to shift for myself and take care of myself and make my own decisions, and sometimes it would be tough on me. If that conditions you, I was conditioned. On the other hand I have always been very incensed at a lot of different injustices I have seen, and at the injustices I have seen against women. I have been frustrated so many times because I was not a man. So I probably see things faster than somebody else who doesn’t care. Some girls might not mind not being allowed to go to the army...I was always told by everybody that I must not do this, or I must not do that because girls don’t do those things. I was told so many times that girls are inferior to men, that men can do things and girls can’t, and I couldn’t take it. I didn’t care how hard it was on me.

So far as the political situation in Europe, I am not like some people who think that all this stuff is just propaganda. I remember when Mussolini issued a decree - I was just a kid at the time - he issued a decree that women were not to wear short skirts, and that they were to keep their proper places. Well, Mussolini was definitely out so far as I was concerned. I was convinced that anybody with that kind of an attitude was absolutely no good for the people generally. I never felt that I was an outstanding genius, but people had to give me a chance to think and develop whatever thinkabilities I had. If a person would not give me a chance I would fight them. Hitler has the system where he sends women to camps to be breeders. That strikes me at my very most innermost desire for freedom, and self-expression, and for culture, and education. Just being an ordinary human-being I couldn’t tolerate a thing like that. It has gotten to mean so much to me that I don’t care what I do in the process of fighting against conditions like that.

I got the idea of going to Spain first and then my husband got the idea and my brother got the idea, and they got there ahead of me. And I worked so hard to go over there. I had saved money for it, I had to convince people. I had to argue with them, and to prove things. But the average fellow or my husband had no difficulty getting there. It might have helped that he was there. I don’t know....I went over there because I wanted to do a job.

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In another one of her letters from March 1939 she would describe their need for certain donations from the Spanish Medical Aid Committee. In one she specifically talks about how they had received 600 men that were wounded and most needed clothing. Because of the supplies sent by the Committee they were not in such a dire need for supplies that they would have been in previously had they not received the supplies. In another section of her letter from March 2nd, 1939 she describes a surgery for a man who was suffering from hemorrhages in his stomach. The doctor had to perform a three hour long surgery due to the fact that this was one of the first times that the doctor had attempted this kind of surgery and lack of better materials. The only had three needles available for the operation. The problem occured when three quarters of the way through the surgery the spinal anesthetic wore off because it was “rotten.” The result of this was that the doctor had to finish the surgery while he was awake. Later on she mentions that she hopes he will recover and that the odd tins of milk and soups they received would help his exhaustion and shock sustained after the surgery. Addy speaks very fondly of those that she was able to help during her time in Spain. She feels better knowing that the people whose lives she impacted will never forget their English nurse.
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2. Tragedy of Civil War (1937)
3. Asistencia social: pro inválidos
4. Ajut als mutilats de guerra
5. Messerschmitt BF 109B1
6. Bombardement Guernica - Cinémathèque de Bretagne
8. Madge Addy March 2nd, 1939 Letters In another one of her letters from March 1939 she would describe their need for certain donations from the Spanish Medical Aid Committee. In one she specifically talks about how they had received 600 men that were wounded and most needed clothing. Because of the supplies sent by the Committee they were not in such a dire need for supplies that they would have been in previously had they not received the supplies. In another section of her letter from March 2nd, 1939 she describes a surgery for a man who was suffering from hemorrhages in his stomach. The doctor had to perform a three hour long surgery due to the fact that this was one of the first times that the doctor had attempted this kind of surgery and lack of better materials. The only had three needles available for the operation. The problem occured when three quarters of the way through the surgery the spinal anesthetic wore off because it was “rotten.” The result of this was that the doctor had to finish the surgery while he was awake. Later on she mentions that she hopes he will recover and that the odd tins of milk and soups they received would help his exhaustion and shock sustained after the surgery. Addy speaks very fondly of those that she was able to help during her time in Spain. She feels better knowing that the people whose lives she impacted will never forget their English nurse.
9. Obrero! Trabaja Y Venceremos
10. ¡MUJER...! Tu felicidad conyugal está en tus manos.
11. Bolchevismo, injusticia social, politicastros, masones, separatismo, F.A.I.
12. Que Tu Familia No Viva el Drama de la Guerra: Evacuar Madrid es Ayudar a la Victoria Final
13. Revista Vientos del Pozo: número extraordinario homenaje al Padre Llanos
16. Letter from Juan F. de Cardenas
17. Pro-conferencia nacional de la dona jove
18. Congreso nacional de la solidaridad, 1938- Ana Pauker
21. Felicia Browne's Anti-Fascism poster for Italy.
23. Arroyo del Abroñigal
25. El Generalisimo Francisco Franco Todavía esta Muerto
26. Pro monumento Pablo Iglesias
27. One Hundred Years of Solitude
28. Women! Keep War From Britain: Support Spanish Democrats
29. Madge Addy March 14th, 1939 Page 1 On March 14th, 1939 Addy talks about how she almost had to leave due to an order from England to return. Addy describes how depressed the idea of leaving would have made her. She had worked very hard and would have felt terrible to leave at that time. She had to pack her things and gave most of what she could away to those who still needed it. Fortunately she was able to stay and explain through rare telecommunication that she would feel much better in Ucles. Her duty to the hospital and to Ucles kept her from wanting to be anywhere else. Many people were overjoyed that she could remain with them. At the end of the letter she describes how Juan, the man who had to undergo the horrible surgery mentioned previously, was doing much better.
30. February 1939 - Spain - Barcelona - Associated Press of Great Britain Ltd
31. Madrid Food Line
33. Episode 16- Food Scarcity and Women's Daily Lives in the Early Franco Years Audio Podcast by Historias on SoundCloud discussing the Franco Dictatorship. Immediately following the Spanish Civil War, Spain faced a terrible food crisis. Suzanne Dunai examines how the policies of the early Franco dictatorship brought on this crisis and how ordinary Spaniards, particularly women, dealt with it on a day-to-day basis. From ration cards to bartering, from canning to buying on the black market, Spanish women showed a remarkable resilience as they sought to feed their families in this time of devastating scarcity.
34. Evacuación
35. Poema 17
36. Madge Addy March 14th, 1939 Page 2 These are the last paragraphs of Addy’s letter from March 14th, 1939. She talks again about how she hopes the people she has helped will never forget their English nurse. When thinking about her time in Spain she feels she has accomplished so much and saved many lives. She has made her doctor’s actions effective with her hard work. Even the villagers who she describes as a bad lot now respect her and talk to her sometimes.
37. C.N.T. Comité Nacional A.I.T., Oficina de Información y Propaganda
38. Federació de Cooperatives de Producció Treball de Catalunya
39. Book Jacket created by Felicia Browne for Anatole France's "The Revolt of the Angels."
40. Sketch of Men's faces from 1936.
41. The Ultraleftist / El Izquierdista
43. Francisco Franco's Funeral
44. Photo of Four People in Front of Supplies or Medical Van Including Felicia Browne
45. Children's Drawing of Bombing
46. Hacia El Ejercito Popular
47. Evacuad Madrid
48. Women, Work for Comrades!
50. January 1937 - Spain - Madrid - Associated Press of Great Britain Ltd.
51. María Pilar Landa
52. Mujeres Antifacistas Espanioles
53. Franco Statue Removal
55. ¡Esto es el fascismo! miseria... destrucción... persecución... y muerte
56. Repatriation of Basque Children
57. Felicia Browne holding a child
58. Kion vi feras por eviti tion? Geesperantistoj el la tuta mondo agu energie kontrau la internacia fasismo!
59. The Republican Left Thank the Russian People for Help (1937)
60. Fascist Salute
62. Criminales!
64. Frederica Montseny speaking at CNT in 1977
65. La marina de guerra inglesa y francesa protegen la evacuación de la población no combatiente.
67. Carteles Murales
68. January 1940 - England - Middlesex
69. Por la conquista de Euskadi y sus riquezas, el invasor siembra el terror haciendo qur sus pacíficos habitants abandonen sus hogares.
70. Spanish Republican News
71. Children's Drawing, Spanish Civil War
72. Sisters of Mercy Arrive to Help Feed Hungry Residents of Madrid

Excerpt from an Interview with Evelyn HutchinsThis is a transcription of an interview that Hutchins gave on why she decided to become a truck driver and why as a woman this was a very important fight for her personally.

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Excerpt from an Interview with Evelyn Hutchins

This is a transcription of an interview that Hutchins gave on why she decided to become a truck driver and why as a woman this was a very important fight for her personally.